Former Chairman House Committee on Internal Security and a 2019 All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant in Zamfara State, Hon. Aminu Sani Jaji, has declared the party will take the reign of governance come 2023.
He said but for the disagreement during the last general elections and the attendant legal actions that upturned the political will of the people, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the State knew it has no political base in Zamfara.
Jaji, who spoke with newsmen in Abuja, said the fortune of the ruling party in the state in recent time has been experiencing membership drift to the APC.
According to the APC chieftain: “Going by the 2019 general elections, the PDP got 180,000 votes, including the protest votes while the APC got almost 600,000 votes.
“I can say confidently that we are going to take it (Zamfara State), because instead of our people to decamp to the PDP, it is the PDP supporters that are decamping to the APC. So you can see we are already reducing the 180,000 votes scored by the PDP even before 2023.
“As we speak the protest votes are no longer there because we are now united and working as a family. So the PDP is in power in Zamfara not because it was based on the mandate. They are there because the court mandated them to be in power. Its just a court mandate they are enjoying for now.”
On the move to grant amnesty to bandits ravaging the state and the entire North West region, the former governorship
aspirant endorsed the use of full force to flush out the bandits, insisting attempt to negotiate with the bandits will not produce the desired results.
El’Rufai Jaji would rather the bandits to face the full wrath of the law.
“I am 100 percent in full support of the Kaduna State Governor Ahmad Nasir el-Rufai on the use of force against bandits. I said it before now and I will still repeat myself again. There is no way you say that you want to reconcile or dialogue with bandits.”
Advising on what to do to checkmate the bandits, Jaji said, “what government need to do is to have a clear information about the bandits, their strength, their capacity and the source and the people involved in the nefarious activities. I believe if the government have the intelligence information, there is no need to dialogue with them.
“How can you dialogue with somebody with over 300 AK 49 riffles and in the process of the dialogue with him he will surrender say 10 of those rifles and instead of to allow him to go free you move huge sum of money from government coffers to give him again.
“If he maybe used to get the AK47 riffle at the rate of N100,000 , he surrenders 10 of the guns and you pay him N10 million, that means technically you have encouraged him to remain in the business. It means he will go and buy 20 of the AK 47 riffles. What is the logic in this?
“Before May 2019, most of the routes where they use to operate from were cut off by the security agencies. At the time they felt there was no option but to surrender.
” But with this whole idea of dialogue all over they are now operating freely. There is simply no need to dialogue with them because it is fueling the problem.”